Birds in Love (1936) Review: Fun, but my ears are still ringing

If you have eight minutes to spare and a weird tolerance for high-pitched bird whistling, yes, Birds in Love is worth a quick look. Animation nerds will love the bouncy 1930s style, but anyone who hates sharp noises should run far away.

The setup is about as simple as it gets. Two birds are totally obsessed with each other, chirping and rubbing beaks, until a jerk bird shows up to ruin the party.

Marion Darlington and Leone Le Doux do the bird whistles here. And let me tell you, they are really going for it.

It is basically just chirping at maximum volume for the entire runtime. I had to turn my TV volume down twice because my cat started looking at the speakers like they were possessed. 🐱

The animation itself is pretty neat though. It has that classic, rubbery bounce where literally everything in the background is constantly moving.

Even the tree branches look like they are breathing. It’s slightly creepy if you stare at it too long, honestly.

Writer Ben Harrison didn't really write a plot here. It’s more like a series of quick gags held together by feathers and gravity-defying logic.

This cartoon came out around the same era when Hollywood was trying all sorts of weird experiments, like the heavy drama in The Wet Parade or the goofy comedy of The Dude Wrangler. But animators were clearly living in their own strange world.

The rival bird is easily the best part of the whole thing. He has this smug, half-closed eye look that makes you immediately want to flick him off his branch.

At one point, he does this weird little dance that feels totally out of place. I actually rewatched that specific five seconds three times because it made me laugh out loud.

It’s not quite as chaotic as A Movie Mad Maid, but it has that same 'what were they inhaling in the writer's room' energy.

The climax is just a giant blur of feathers and dust. Classic cartoon stuff, but done with zero regard for physics.

If you've ever sat through Boo, Boo, Theme Song!, you already know how these musical shorts love to just repeat the same audio hook until you go crazy.

Here, the hook is just... birds screaming. Beautifully, but still screaming.

Is it a masterpiece? Absolutely not.

But it's a weird little time capsule that makes you appreciate how much work went into drawing every single frame by hand. Just keep your hand on the volume remote.